Death On The Nile - Miss Marple
by The Agatha Christiean
Summary: Miss Marple looks into the curious circumstances surrounding the death of beautiful Linnet Ridgeway.
1. Chapter 1

Linnet Doyle, Miss Marple reflected, wasa very beautiful young woman. And also, as Raymond would put it, 'filthy rich'.Everything from her pretty wine-colored frock to her very attractive pearl necklace had given Miss Marple the impression that MrsDoyle  
wasexceedingly wealthy -

Mrs Doyle's own manner (a spoilt girl, though that could hardly be any fault of hers) conveyed just as distinctly.

And now, so Miss van Schuyler informed her, she was dead. And her husband had been injured by a gunshot.

Coincidences, in Miss Marple's opinion, were few and far between. Jackie, as the Doyles calledMiss de Bellefort, was the perpetrator of the second... Perhaps a little subtle reconnaissance would help her decide...

A plain-looking young girl was sitting on the deck-chair opposite to Miss Marple, and this young girl was Miss Marple's target.

Strangely, Miss Marple, who had been innocuously knitting a wool scarf, suddenly dropped it at the young woman's feet. 'Dear me!' Miss Marple murmured. 'I am so _very_ clumsy. Would you mind, my dear?'

'Not at all,' the girl said, brightly. She leant over her chair, letting the scarf slip under her seat. She, Miss Marple noticed, was a gangly young thing, and rather untidy too. Poor dear, Miss Marple sighed. Miss van Schuyler had told her so much about  
/Miss - Robinson - Robson?

'I'm Cornelian Robson,' Miss Robson grinned, offering with a taper-fingered hand, the slightly soiled scarf. 'I'm terribly sorry if I've made a mess of it. I'm not a Lady - Cousin Marie says so too, and Miss Bowers is terribly kind but she looks at mequeerly  
/sometimes - like I'm a changeling, you know, but she's really quite nice.'

'Miss Bowers?' Miss Marple asked.

'Yes, she's a sort of nurse-companion to Cousin Marie - Jim (Mr Fanthorp, that is) despises her absolutely - he called her a stiff-lipped Jezebel, I think.'

'Oh!' Miss Marple muttered, color rushing to her cheeks. 'Indeed.'

'It's quite terrible, I think, what happened to Linnet Ridgeway - I suppose I really should say Doyle, but one does feel it is odd, don't you think?'

A pretty young creature approached them, looking strangely mournful, with deep, doleful eyes and a mouth set in a grimace. 'They're looking for the maid now,' she announced. 'Louise Bourget. Mrs Doyle's maid.'

'Are they?' Miss Marple mused. 'I should think of looking in the young woman's room itself. Thoroughness - '

'My dear Miss Marple,' smiled the mournful girl, Rosalie Otterbourne. 'Don't you think that is where they started looking?'

'If you would let me finish, my dear,' Miss Marple put in gently. 'I was saying that thoroughness is not a trait often possessed by murderers.'

'You think she killed Mrs Doyle, Miss Marple?' Cornelia Robson cried. 'Surely not!'

'Oh, no,' Miss Marple began meaningfully, but she was interrupted by Rosalie's mother, the authoress Salome Otterbourne, hand-in-hand with a very attractive, intenseyoung thing with dark, foreign coloring.

' _Who_ killed Mrs Doyle?' Mrs Otterbourne cut in.

'Surely,' murmured Jacqueline de Bellefort, her hands on her hips. 'You don't mean me.'

'My dear,' Miss Marple smiled faintly. 'As far as I have been informed, there are no suspects for the murder. The police haven't any evidence.'

'Except,' Mrs Otterbourne said ghoulishly. 'The Mark of the Blood. A 'J' in blood, above the body of the beautiful new bride. All rather suggestive, wouldn't you say?'

Miss Marple knew how often love was the motive for murder - so many unhappy young people killed the people they once loved, so Jackie was certainly the number one suspect, having tangled herself up in a love triangle.

But what of Mr Fanthorp? Hadn't he had quite as much opportunity as Miss de Bellefort to steal the gun that was used by her to shoot her former fiancé? And what was his Christian name?

Ah, yes, James.

'J'. Was it him?

* * *

Miss van Schuyler was obstinate. Though Miss Marple sensed that the wealthy American spinster was not scrupulous in the least, Jane Marple believed her in this case. And it was quite a damning accusation too.

'I saw her!' Marie van Schuyler had insisted. 'That Otterbourne girl - she was out on the deckthe night that Ridgeway girl was killed. I've told you before.'

When news of it got round to Miss Otterbourne, she hesitated for a moment, and then laughed, 'Is it some sort of crime to be out at night?'

'She says, my dear,' Jane Marple feigned interest in her crochet. 'That you were throwing something overboard. It's quite alright if you were, my dear.'

'I wasn't!' Rosalie cried. 'I wasn't outside.'

Mrs Allerton looked at Rosalie in a motherly manner that Mrs Otterbourne never had. 'I'm quite sure you didn't do anything if the sort, Rosalie. Perhaps you'd best go with Tim and sort it all out.'

'I saw Mr Allerton doing something with a rosary in his room,' Miss Bowers offered from a corner of the deck, softly, since Miss van Schuyler was asleep.

'Tim, praying!' Mrs Allerton chuckled. 'Something must have upset him very much, unless it's that Joanna creature - '

'Miss Southwood?' Miss Marple asked. 'I haveheard quite a lot about her, but if I am not mistaken, she isn't particularly religious.'

'I'll go myself,' Rosalie murmured, and walked quickly into the restaurant of the ship.

'I can't think, Miss Marple,' Mrs Allerton began. 'Why I am telling you this, but I think that Joanna - Tim's cousin - is not a positive influence on Tim, and I don't want him to make a halfwitted marriage - he's usually quite careful, but when it comes  
/to his cousin, I'm afraid - '

'I think you'll find, Mrs Allerton,' Miss Marple said kindly. 'That if one gives young people some time, they make the right decision. The important thing, in my experience, is not to _push_ them.'

Mrs Allerton looked suddenly as though a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. 'Oh, _thank_ you, Miss Marple.'

A short, squat middle-aged man approached Mrs Allerton and Miss Marple. He said, stoutly, 'I don't like to be moved from my patient Herr Doyle, but I thought I should tell you.'

'Yes, Dr Bessner,' Miss Marple said encouragingly.

'The gun used to kill Mrs Doyle was found in the possession of Rosalie Otterbourne.'

'Goodness!' Mrs Allerton cried. 'The dear child!'

But Miss Marple, thinking of an exchange of cosmetics, smiled knowingly, and kept on knitting…


	2. Chapter 2 Louise Bourget is Found

'But how on Earth did you _know_ , Miss Marple?' Salome Otterbourne insisted, peering into Miss Marple's compartment through the little circular window on the door. 'That Louise would be dead?'

'Oh, Mrs Otterbourne,' smiled Miss Marple, recognising the shrill tone of the authoress' voice. 'Do come in.'

Mrs Otterborne obliged, swinging the door to, and stopping it with a marble door-stopper that had lain by it.

She was surprised to find a handsome grey-haired man in the bedroom, and couldn't help giggling at the sight. All restrained, faded spinsters here! Like that Miss Bowers - now _she_ was the classic case - teeming with passion, of course, and terribly  
/depraved.

'Mr Pennington,' Salome said girlishly. 'I see you are very fond of Miss Marple - she is such a very sweet woman - '

'I would advise you,' Miss Marple said kindly. 'To remove these thoughts from your mind, for they are almost all untrue, and our fellow passengers may not appreciate feminine - intuition is perhaps the most suitable word.'

'That,' Mrs Otterbourne changed tracks swiftly. 'Is not what I came to talk to you about, but I - is it necessary for Mr Pennington to be here? I really wouldn't like it for him to hear the message I am about to deliver.'

Miss Marple disliked immensely Mrs Otterbourne's dramatizing of the murder, and wondered whether to read any significance into the woman's constant stares at Andrew Pennington - almost angry looks, which caused Mr Pennington to leave the compartment in  
ahuff.

'As you know, Miss Marple,' Salome sniffed. 'My novels have been widely known as thrones of _passion_ and - '

'My dear, what are you trying to say?' Miss Marple asked.

'I - saw something,' Mrs Otterbourne began. 'The killer of Louise Bourget - isn't that also the killer of Mrs Doyle?'

'Yes…'

'So if I'd seen Louise's killer - I had also, in effect, seen Linnet's killer? So I know who killed both of them, and would it be my duty to tell… oh, it is quite a tricky - I had. I hadn't been able to sleep very well, you see, and

so - '

A loud thundering crash sounded, as Salome Otterbourne, novelist of garish fiction, fell to the floor, having been shot in the head.

* * *

Quite a little group gathered in Miss Marple's compartment, which was now stained with blood, comforting her (in the case of Miss Robson, Mrs Allertonand Miss Bowers) and scolding her (in the case of young Mr Ferguson).

BeautifulRosalie Otterbournestood in a corner of the room, deathly silent, and with a strange sorrow in her eyes, a sorrow that was more of a concentrated bitterness.

Tim Allerton was rapidly writing a letter to the authorities, so they could post it to England when they docked.

Dr Bessner and Mr Doyle were absent, however, and Jacqueline de Bellefort too. Andrew Pennington was also not in the room. This last absence no one noticed Bessner's services were not needed, but he arrived soon after the company had assembled

to arrive at a rough postmortem.

'I have left Mr Pennington with Mr Doyle. Thankfully, he heals very quickly.'

He made the sign of the cross, before leaning over the lifeless body of Mrs Otterbourne, who had her mouth opened as though interrupted in her speech by the bullet that killed her.

'Shot to the head. Death was instantaneous - she was not,' he glanced at Miss Otterbourne's tear-streaked face. 'In pain. I do not think I need to tell you when the murder occurred. _Fraulein_ Marple was the witness to it.'

Mrs Allerton walked to Miss Marple, displaying the appropriate dignity and somberness of mood. 'Did you see anything, Jane?' She asked anxiously.

'If you mean the murderer, my dear, then no. I did not. My eyesight isn't what it once was, I'm afraid, and I believe she was shot from a distance.'

Jacqueline de Bellefort ran in just then, breathless with excitement.

'Have I missed the fun?'


End file.
